


Nothing Else

by TraceyLordHaven



Series: Next to Nothing [6]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst and Feels, Moving On, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TraceyLordHaven/pseuds/TraceyLordHaven
Summary: They sat in silence for a while, both too absorbed in indulgent self-recrimination to pay much attention to the other.  After a couple of minutes, though, they both started feeling … awkward.  It was too quiet.  The other was too near.  If something didn’t happen soon, they might be forced to talk to one another.  Small talk, probably.  Which would be torture.Meaningful conversation was out of the question.But so was further silence.  Yes, the silence was torture.So they sat.  And fidgeted.  Very, very uncomfortably.
Relationships: Axum/Seven of Nine, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway & Seven of Nine
Series: Next to Nothing [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556821
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34





	1. Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> I don't love this installment, but needed to wrap it up.

The San Francisco weather was annoyingly fickle. The cold grayness of the day kept being interrupted by blinding flashes of sunshine. The moisture sticking to the ground and plants and monuments in the Starfleet Memorial Garden picked up the light when it appeared, reflecting it back and creating an unearthly glow. 

One of the moments of light and shine was ending when Chakotay reached the memorial plaque dedicated to the Voyager crew who had died since the day it had been dragged to the Delta Quadrant. There was room on the plaque for all their names, of course – eventually, his own name would be there. He looked at the newest entry, engraved only yesterday. Louis Culhane had served in Starfleet for only a couple of years more after Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant. He resigned his commission and began working with his family’s aquafarming business in the Mediterranean Sea. Only five days ago, he and his brother were killed in the implosion of an experimental cultivation unit 800 feet below the surface. No cause had yet been determined.

“We keep dying,” Chakotay thought to himself, reviewing the list of names, stopping momentarily at Seven’s.

His eyes moved to bottom of the plaque where the names of his crew from the Valjean were listed in a separate section – the ones who died before ever setting foot on Voyager. Chakotay had been surprised that Starfleet had been willing to include them, as they had died as terrorists. He shouldn’t have been surprised when B’Elanna told him that Kathryn had insisted on the inclusion. 

He had always intended to thank her. Somehow, it never happened.

As the sky turned gray again, Chakotay took a seat on a bench a few feet from the plaque to wait for Axum. He heard footsteps and turned, expecting to see Seven’s lover.

Kathryn. It was Kathryn walking towards the bench.

The flash of panic had only just made it from his brain to his gut when she caught sight of him. She came to a quick stop on the garden path.

“Oh, hell,” Kathryn thought.

She looked at Chakotay, then at the memorial. She kind of hoped she’d taken a wrong turn, as though she hadn’t been here dozens of times over the years, as though he would be anyplace other than the memorial to their crew and ship, as though he weren’t sitting in the very spot where she had spent so many hours grieving dead friends.

No, there was the Voyager plaque, it was the right place, she was in the right place. And here he was.

“Maybe he’ll leave when I tell him I am meeting Axum,” Kathryn thought as she started moving again, slowly, towards the bench.

Then she stopped again and groaned. Axum. He must have asked them both to meet him.

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She doubted Axum was playing matchmaker, but … damn. Why couldn’t people leave this alone?

Once again, she started walking towards the bench, towards her former first officer.

Chakotay, meanwhile, had become oddly fascinated watching the dance of indecision Kathryn was performing. It was almost comedic. 

Not that he was in any mood to laugh. She appeared equally unsettled as she took a seat on the other end of the bench.

“Chakotay,” she said.

He nodded in return.

Needing to not look at each other, they both looked at the plaque.

Chakotay was surprised to hear himself say, “Culhane was a good man. He had been after me to come see their farming operation for a while, I never got around to it. I don’t know why he wanted me to visit so badly, I’ve never been interested in aquaculture.”

After several seconds of silence, Kathryn said, “Amphorae.”

“What?” Chakotay asked.

“Amphorae,” Kathryn repeated.

Chakotay shook his head, confused.

“Louis was always seeing strange mounds on their mapping expeditions. What his family dismissed as random rock formations, he believed to be ruins of ancient shipwrecks. He thought their farm might have been littered with amphorae from thousands of years ago.”

Kathryn paused and shrugged.

“He thought if he could get you to see it, you might agree and he could convince his family to get the sites investigated.”

“How did you know that?”

“He told me abut what he's seen. I told him to contact you.”

Chakotay looked back at the plaque.

“He sent me three comms when I was in New Mexico,” he said softly. “I never responded.”

Kathryn looked at the name “Seven of Nine” on the plaque and replied quietly, “That happens.”

They sat in silence for a while, both too absorbed in indulgent self-recrimination to pay much attention to the other. After a couple of minutes, though, they both started feeling … awkward. It was too quiet. The other was too near. If something didn’t happen soon, they might be forced to talk to one another. Small talk, probably. Which would be torture. 

Meaningful conversation was out of the question. 

But so was further silence. Yes, the silence was torture.

So they sat. And fidgeted. Very, very uncomfortably.


	2. Explained

A dozen feet away, Axum watched their discomfort and shook his head. He wasn’t a cruel man, but he couldn’t help but find the sight before him a little amusing. Annika had described these two humans to him in excruciating detail, and now the excruciation was on full display.

But his transport left in just two hours, and he still wanted to see Naomi and the Doctor before leaving Earth for good. There was no time to just watch, he needed to get this done.

"Good afternoon," he said as he walked up, startling both of them.

They both mumbled nervous greetings. Axum put his pack on the ground in front of the bench and took a seat on it.

Axum said, “Thank you for coming, both of you.”

He took a deep breath.

"I don’t have a lot of time today, so I’ll just start. The things Annika wanted to say to you, I cannot say for her exactly," Axum said. "But she spoke with me at length about both of you. I know what she wanted to explain to you, the things she wanted you to understand about her relationships with both of you."

"I am aware both of you experienced partial assimilation, but neither of you ever truly knew what it meant to be Borg. Which means neither of you could ever know what it meant to be a liberated Borg. That is an experience she could share with only a very few, myself included."

Axum leaned forward a bit, putting his elbows on his knees.

“It’s important that I explain what all this means if you are to ever have any peace about your time with her. Do you understand?”

Kathryn and Chakotay both nodded, and Axum continued.  
  
“You see, the Borg practice of seeing everything resource to be consumed continues in freed drones long after our liberations. When I awoke on that cube in the Beta Quadrant, I was so desperate to understand how to exist that I would have easily attempted to assimilate a person to help me. The Borg want our knowledge quickly and completely, we are not wired to learn over time as natural individuals are. The freed drones on my cube and me, we all continued to see other beings as collections of thoughts and experiences that we could consume."   
  
Axum took a moment to look each of the people sitting before him directly in the eyes.

"Annika wasn’t aware of it because she had no frame of reference, but she treated both of you as resources to be consumed. Admiral, she consumed your knowledge and your guidance. As you encouraged her independence and spent less time with her, she sought other resources. Chakotay, you were another, she consumed your affection and your strength.”  
  
Axum paused and looked at the ground. When he looked back up, he appeared almost apologetic.  
  
"Admiral, she told me how she looked to you for a template on how to live. She wasn’t capable of a real friendship with you then, you were little more to her than the voices she used to hear in the collective. You counseled her to help her towards individuality, and she rewarded you by mimicking friendship behaviors she observed. But the way she was consuming help from you was actually a way she avoided true individuality."  
  
Kathryn stared blankly at Axum. What he was saying made a strange sort of sense but … but how on earth did she not see it at the time?

“This is what happens when you liberate a member of the Borg. Emotional awareness and maturity happen in painful leaps, not according to any kind of natural developmental schedule. A lot of emotional growth is inhibited by our implants, but it’s more than that. Our brains are used to being Borg and continue to process everything we encounter in a drone-like manner. But we are not drones, we are not in a collective. There is no consistency. In one circumstance, we can have the wisdom and patience of the sages -- in the next, we can act with little more maturity or self-control than an infant.  
  
“Annika was assimilated when she was only five. When you pulled her away from the collective, you awoke the girl she was, not the woman she appeared to be. And children are inherently selfish. She used you, Admiral, because that was all she was capable of doing.  
  
Axum laid his hand on Kathryn’s and squeezed it.  
  
“Admiral, she needed a mother, but had no idea how to relate to one. So she just consumed you as a mother. And you didn't know any better than to let her.”   
  
Kathryn nodded slightly. In her mind, she had already begun reevaluating her entire relationship with Seven.  
  
Axum turned to Chakotay.  
  
“Annika used to enjoy telling me about how you wanted to remove her from Voyager via airlock after she arrived. She would laugh when she told me, but I think she knew that you had real insight into how very much she remained a drone. You just didn’t realize what that actually meant.”  
  
Axum sighed and when he spoke again, he sounded tired. And sad.

“Things changed for Annika after your contact with Unimatrix Zero and her awareness of me and our relationship. She was still a child, in many ways, but she was one who had discovered the idea of love. She wasn’t comfortable discussing this with anyone. She had all these feelings she did not know how to deal with – affection, attraction, longing, heartbreak, and so on. So she decided she needed a romantic partner to explore this facet of existence. Chakotay, that is how she consumed you.”

Axum’s voice tightened. 

“I wish I could say it doesn’t bother me that you became romantically involved with Annika – I was so far away. I know you and she discussed that the two of you turned to each other to replace the people you thought you couldn’t have – the Admiral for you and me for Annika. But it does bother me.”  
  
“I am sorry if you ever believed differently but she never -- never -- truly loved you.”  
  
Axum looked at Chakotay – for a split second, there was jealousy evident in his eyes, and Chakotay felt the threat inherent in that resentment. 

It passed, and Axum sighed. He began speaking to both of them again.  
  
“When you are Borg, the reactions of those you assimilate is irrelevant – this is true even after you are an individual and should perhaps know better. Annika had no reason to consider how she would impact you. Those years on Voyager were confusing for her. She really only understood this before she died -- this is why she wanted to ask your forgiveness. She used both of you and she regretted it."   
  
Axum suddenly stood and said, "On Annika's behalf, I ask you both to forgive her."

Kathryn and Chakotay both nodded, Chakotay softly saying "Of course," and Kathryn whispering, "There's nothing to forgive."

Axum took a deep breath and added, "She also needed to offer forgiveness to the two of you. As surely as she used you, you both used her."

Chakotay had already been confronted with this by B'Elanna, so he wasn't surprised. Kathryn, however, was taken aback.  
  
"How did I use her?" she asked. 

Axum smiled slightly and responded, "She was an interesting distraction for you, wasn't she?"

Kathryn was offended. 

"She was my friend and a valued member of my crew, she wasn't a distraction. What on earth could she have distracted me from, anyway?"

Axum said, “From what Annika and I have been told, plenty. Your entire existence over there was under constant threat. You felt enormous guilt for stranding your ship in the Delta Quadrant. People under your command had died. You had been betrayed by some of your crew. You had enemies on every side. You even died.”

“The life of a starship captain is rarely a vacation,” Kathryn huffed.

“True,” Axum conceded. “But you had no help. Other captains could communicate with Earth, with each other, with their families as the needed counsel. They could come home. You couldn’t. And the best source of support you had, Chakotay, wanted something you felt you couldn’t give. You were trapped.”

At the mention of Chakotay, Kathryn blushed. But she couldn’t look at him.

Axum said, “Some of your crew thought your mentoring of Annika was a break from all those hardships, a retreat.”

A retreat.

Kathryn’s eyes widened. She remembered the words of her former fiancé from just the night before:

_That was a retreat. You had been faced with something unimaginable …. You retreated to something that made you feel as though you had some measure of control, because those horrible things that had happened to you up to that moment were losses of control._

A bolt of electricity ran through her.

She turned to Chakotay and asked weakly, “Did I use Seven to avoid problems on Voyager?”

Chakotay put his hand on hers and replied, “You never neglected the ship or crew, Captain Janeway never faltered. But I think a lot of us felt Kathryn pull away from us.”

Chakotay sighed and looked at his hand resting on Kathryn’s. It had been years since he had touched her like this – not as a would-be lover or colleague, but a friend offering comfort.

“I was jealous of the time you spent with Seven. I lost my friend. And though I swore I would never tell you this, B’Elanna also felt that she lost you when Seven arrived. It seemed like we had such a perfect family on the ship. Then we lost Kes and we gained a Borg, and it felt like a part of you vanished. It felt like you disappeared into caring for Seven because the rest of us were too hard to deal with, or we had failed you or something. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

Kathryn was also looking at his hand on hers – and she also wondered how long it had been.

“None of this makes you a villain, Admiral,” Axum said. “But you were using her as an escape.”

“As a retreat,” Kathryn replied.

“Yes,” Axum agreed. “And she forgave you for it before she died.”

Kathryn’s eyes had reddened, and a tear or two were threatening to fall. She felt such shame. In the nearly 17 years since Voyager got home, Kathryn had passionately nurtured her sense of martyrdom when it came to all things Seven of Nine. It never occurred to her to question her own motives in devoting so much time to the young woman’s development.

Deep down, Kathryn had been blaming Seven for the bitterness of her life after Voyager. It never occurred to her to weigh her own blame.

She groaned and put her free hand over her eyes.

“I am so sorry, Axum. You too, Chakotay. I have hurt so many people by retreating without thinking.”

Chakotay took his hand off of hers and squeezed her shoulder.

“You are human. We screw up, it happens. You retreat at hide. As for me ….”

He looked at Axum and said, “Me, I run away. I find I can’t get what I want and I run to the next thing. That’s what I did with Seven, isn’t it?”

Axum nodded.

“Yes. Annika understood it. You wanted what you couldn't have on Voyager, a life with your captain. You looked for a place to run. Annika gave you an opening, and you took it. You ran away from what you could not have with the Admiral right into a relationship with her.”

Chakotay opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. 

He looked at Axum and asked in a broken voice, “Do you believe I killed her?”

The former Borg looked at Chakotay intently. 

“I understand why you are asking me this. Annika told me about her conversations with B’Elanna about the Beta Quadrant. I cannot tell you that things would not have been different if she and I had found each other sooner.”

Chakotay’s head dropped, his quick intake of air a prelude to a quiet sob.

“That does not mean you are to blame, Chakotay,” Axum said gently. “Annika made her own decision. Her actions were her own, as were her inactions. She is not dead because of you.”

Chakotay nodded, his head still down.

“She forgave you, my friend, as do I,” Axum said firmly. 

Axum looked at the sky as though measuring the time. He bent over to pick up his pack and addressed Kathryn and Chakotay again.

“None of you understood what you were doing to each other, I know that. Annika knew that. And she knew that the three of you needed to forgive one another to ever have peace.”

Axum turned to look at the Voyager memorial plaque, at the place where her name was etched. 

“She was not ‘Seven of Nine,’ she was ‘Annika.’ My Annika. She was the girl I met and grew up with in Unimatrix Zero, the girl I grew to love, the woman I still loved and sought once I was free. I buried her body less than two years ago. She was never ‘Seven of Nine’ to me,” he murmured as much to himself as anyone.

Axum slung his pack over his shoulder and said, “I am leaving Earth later today, likely for good. There are many more Borg out there I can help. That was another promise I made to her, that I would spend the rest of my days trying to give others the chance we got – the chance that Voyager gave us.”

He sighed. His voice had lowered when he spoke again.

“She told me … Annika told me that every Borg drone I liberate is a chance for another individual to find the kind of love she and I shared. If they are lucky enough to find it, that love is our legacy.”

He looked at Kathryn and Chakotay one last time.

“What the two of you do next is also her legacy. You cannot change the past, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it. Annika believed you meant a great deal to one another once, and she deeply regretted any role she played in dividing you. You forgave her, and she forgave you. Perhaps you could consider also forgiving each other.”

He turned and headed down the path towards the transport station. He did not look back.


	3. Embraced

A brief hug and a lingering kiss. Giggles. Two hands grasping, one person pulling the other up a little-known foot trail to a hidden spot in the back corner of the Starfleet memorial garden.  
  
A boy and a girl, first-year cadets looking for a place to enjoy some uninterrupted time together, emerged from a clump of trees onto the main path. The nook they were seeking, little more than a crevice in the ancient stones that made up the garden walls, should be at the rear of the site. The girl's older sister had told her about it, it was just around the corner and hidden by a line of shrubbery behind a bench ….  
  
They rounded the corner and came to a sudden stop. There were two people on the bench.  
  
Oh, gods and goddesses, it was an admiral. The cadets unclasped their hands and immediately stood at attention.   
  
The man on the bench saw them first. He seemed confused by their presence. He turned to the woman, the admiral, and said something to her. She looked up, also seeming confused. Both appeared to have been crying.  
  
The cadets began to understand they had interrupted something.  
  
Kathryn cleared her throat and said, "At ease, cadets. You seem to be in a rush, can we help you with something?"  
  
"No, sir, thank you," the boy stammered. "We were just looking … we were on a walk."  
  
Kathryn and Chakotay glanced at each other. Cadets just "on a walk" usually didn't blush quite so furiously or have uniforms in such disarray.  
  
Chakotay raised an eyebrow at the two and asked, "Perhaps you were looking for Boothby's Grotto?"  
  
"It has a name?" the boy gasped.   
  
The girl’s face turned ever redder.  
  
Chakotay raised his hand and jerked his thumb over his left shoulder.   
  
“You go past that bottlebrush tree and turn right. Head to the corner of the garden, the break in the wall is covered by vines, but you should find it.”  
  
He smiled at the two cadets.  
  
“Thank you, sir,” the girl replied – still at attention before the Admiral but relaxing at little at Chakotay’s open manner.  
  
Kathryn added dryly, “I am sure you will keep those directions in mind for a future visit, when there are no officers visiting the memorials to their dead friends and colleagues.”  
  
The cadets stood at full attention once again and replied, “Yes, sir!”  
  
Kathryn suppressed a tiny grin and waved her hand, saying “You are dismissed. To your separate dormitory rooms. And please use the actual walkways, do not damage the shrubs more by sneaking back through them.”  
  
The cadets bid a hasty retreat via the marked paths.  
  
Kathryn and Chakotay watched them leave. He said, “I was never that young.”

Kathryn looked at him and replied, “Apparently you were. Boothby’s Grotto? I haven’t heard that name in decades.”  
  
Chakotay smiled and tugged his ear.  
  
“I visited the grotto more times than I would care to admit. I even scratched my name and my, uh, my companion’s name into the rock once as a show of my devotion.”  
  
“Back when your names on a rock was all the proof of devotion anyone needed,” Kathryn replied.  
  
They were both quiet for a moment. Kathryn broke the silence.  
  
“I never went to Boothby’s Grotto. I was far too focused on my studies.”  
  
More silence.   
  
Kathryn leaned back into the bench. She looked at Chakotay. He looked back at her.

Then something he had said to Axum came back to her, so Kathryn asked, “What did you mean when you asked him if he thought you killed Seven? I don’t understand.”

“Seven had a chance to go to the Beta Quadrant a few years ago on an expedition to help the Borg Resistance. She chose not to go – B’Elanna told me that she felt an obligation to stay on Earth and keep me company, I guess. It turns out, though, that the very expedition she declined was the one that met Axum and his group almost two years before she got sick.”

Chakotay took a deep breath.

“Apparently that group of drones had gotten quite proficient at repairing malfunctioning cortical nodes. Had Seven been with them when hers started to fail, they probably could have fixed it and she would have lived.”

Kathryn closed her eyes. Chakotay’s voice dripped with guilt and pain.

“She had a chance to live,” he continued, “And she missed it because she felt an obligation to me. Me, a man who spent years using her. So, yeah, I wondered if Axum blames me. Because I sure as hell blame me.”

“He forgave you,” Kathryn said quietly. “He said Seven forgave you. You did not withhold treatment from her. It was the most tragic result of this … mess … that all of us made.”

Chakotay wiped a tear away and nodded.  
  
They sat in silence for another minute or two

Kathryn eventually said, “But with regard to you and me, I don’t know what I am supposed to say to you. Am I supposed to say anything? Are we friends again, or e we still estranged? Is one of us supposed to get up and leave, and we never see one another again? I really don’t know, Chakotay.”  
  
She looked him earnestly and asked, “Can you tell me what we do next? I am not just saying this, I honestly do not know what to do.”

Chakotay sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  
  
“I don’t know, either,” he replied.  
  
They sat in the quiet of the garden, waiting. Waiting for what? Neither knew. Some sort of signal from the heavens, or the other person, something to tell them each what the next step was.  
  
“I feel awful about everything,” Kathryn finally confessed.

Chakotay looked at her. He was trying to decide … should he tell her, would she hate him? Was he ready for that kind of honesty? 

He remembered his father’s words from the previous night: 

_Each time you run, deep inside, you are hoping the place or people you left will regret their disregard of you. You are almost daring them to not regret it. These are the actions of a child, my son, not a man._

He had to say it. This might be their last chance to get everything out.

“I think making you feel awful was my intent with Seven all along,” he said.

Kathryn looked at him in surprise.

“You were punishing me?” she asked.

Chakotay shook his head.

“Not punishing you, no. I think I wanted to make you react.”

He sighed.

“I went on a vision quest last night. I saw my animal guide for the first time in months – I saw my father for the first time in years. He made me realize what I was doing when I ran away.”

Chakotay turned his head to look at Kathryn.

“Whenever I have been angry or hurt in my life, I have run to something else rather than deal with the problem. I lacked the courage to resolve things with my family, so I ran to Starfleet. I lacked the integrity to try and influence Starfleet’s attitude about the Cardassians, so I ran to the Maquis. I lacked the stomach needed for life as a terrorist, and I would have run away from the Maquis had the Caretaken not pulled us into the Delta Quadrant.”

“Each time I ran,” he continued, “I did so with the arrogant hope that who or whatever I was running from would beg me to come back. That they would see their error in not taking me or my views seriously enough. I wanted them to react to my running – it would be the ultimate confirmation of my worth if they begged me to come back.”

He sighed and said, “I don’t think I realized it until last night, but I wanted you to react to my relationship with Seven by fighting for me.”

Kathryn smiled sadly at him and shook her head.

“I know,” he responded. “I was only thinking about what I wanted, when I wanted it, how I wanted it. I never really gave a thought to the real constraints you were under. I never gave you the patience or credit you deserved.”

Running a hand through his hair, he added, “I also failed to give you the devotion a captain deserves from her first officer. I never realized until B’Elanna laid it out for me – my relationship with Seven was me telling you I didn’t think you would get us home. I didn’t even know I had become so discouraged over there. But you and I had danced around each other so much, and I had made promises – I can admit it now, I made promises to you about what might be when we made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. When I broke those promises, I wasn’t just giving up on the possibility of a relationship with you, I was giving up on my captain.”

Chakotay reached over and took Kathryn’s hand.

“I am so sorry,” he said brokenly. 

“Oh, Chakotay,” she replied, placing her other hand over his as tears fell from her eyes. Everything he said was true – she had felt abandoned by him at the end. It had hurt horribly. To hear him acknowledge how terribly he had bruised her heart and spirit by giving up on her, and to hear him apologize, gave her an unexpected sense of peace.

Could she do the same for him?

They sat in silence a while longer. Then Kathryn sighed and spoke.

“You ran, I retreated. I know I did that, I did it before Seven arrived. I know it was backwards and forwards with me all the time. I enjoyed myself around you so much – you were the only person who reminded me I was more than a captain. I felt so feminine around you, it made me feel so wonderful. I flirted with you shamelessly, I know. I would pull you towards me, towards me more, over and over, then I would back away. I was a damned tease with you, Chakotay. A damned tease.”

The hand she had on top of his slid to his wrist and back up. The touch was intended to reassure, not arouse.

“You scared the hell out of me, Chakotay. Our lives were so precarious over there, I felt if I let one thread come loose, the entire fabric of Voyager would unravel. I desperately needed you, and hated that I needed you. I was so afraid that if I loved you openly, something terrible would happen. It always had before – with Justin, with Mark. But on Voyager, it wasn’t just my heart I was risking. It was all our lives.”

Kathryn looked at him and shook her head.

“When I say it out loud now, it sounds ridiculous. But it was real to me then. And I was so careless in my treatment of you. Please forgive me.”

Rather than speak, Chakotay grabbed Kathryn’s moving hand and squeezed it tightly. They put their foreheads together and shared their space silently.

After a while, Kathryn mumbled, “I still don’t know what the hell to do.”

Chakotay laughed a little and pulled his head away from hers. He smiled, shrugged and said, “Neither do I.”

They both leaned back on the bench, still holding hands.

All of a sudden, Chakotay asked, “What was that thing Axum had on his wrist? A cuff or something? All those different colors? I swear I saw Seven with something like that once.”

“Ah, yes, well,” Kathryn said a little feebly. “I guess there’s no reason you shouldn’t know. Seven and Axum got married a few days before she died.”

"They got married?" Chakotay asked in surprise. 

Kathryn nodded and replied, "That’s what I heard. The Doctor told me the day after the Voyager homecoming event. The only people who knew about it were Naomi, the Doctor, and Admiral Paris. He performed the ceremony. Naomi was maid of honor and the Doctor was best man. That bracelet Axum was wearing, Seven had one, too, apparently signify the joining of two families on Axum’s world. Seven didn't want rings, but was willing to wear one of these."

"Where did they come from, what do they mean?" Chakotay asked.

"I believe Naomi made them. On Axum’s home planet, the bracelets are supposed to be braided or woven from fabrics containing the colors and markings of the families that are being joined. Of course, Naomi just used the materials she has from all her …."

"Quilting?" Chakotay offered, a little bitterly. "From all the quilts of love she apparently made for everyone from Voyager except me?"

Kathryn grimaced, remembering the day she’d found a way to use Naomi's precious gift as a weapon against Chakotay.

"Yeah. Basically, those are their wedding rings," Kathryn said. "I understand Seven was buried wearing hers."

“You’re right, she was. That’s where I saw it,” Chakotay replied.

Kathryn asked him, "Are you upset that she married?"

Chakotay tilted his head slightly in thought. He smiled a little and shook his head.

"No, I'm not," he replied. "I actually think it's great. I'm sorry they felt they couldn't tell me - I mean, it was my house, I might have been helpful. But I'm not sad. If anything, I am proud of her."

Another minute of silence. A soft drizzle started falling.

Chakotay looked at their still-joined hands and said, “I … I mean, do you think we have hurt each other too much to move forward?”

Kathryn considered that for a moment and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. So much time has passed, Chakotay. Are you still the person you were 20 years ago? I’m not. At what point do old friends decide that ‘old’ is of more consequence than ‘friends’?”

Chakotay didn’t respond to that specific question. Instead he asked, “Kathryn, when you look at me, what do you think?”

The question surprised her but the answer came immediately.

“I miss you,” she replied simply.

“And I miss you,” he whispered.

Chakotay let go of her hand and stood up. He faced Kathryn.

“Maybe we don’t need to think about ‘old friends.’ You are right, we have both changed. I am not the man I was when we were on Voyager. I’ve been forced to face some very unpleasant truths about myself, and I’d like to think I’ve learned from it. I don’t want to run away from problems anymore. I am too old, and honestly, too tired.”

Kathryn chuckled looking up at him. She said, “I know how you feel.”

He kneeled in front of her and asked, “Tell me something I don’t know about you, something recent.”

She shrugged and said, “I guess the newest thing is that I retired from Starfleet.”

This surprised Chakotay so much that he lost his balance on the ground, he almost fell over. Kathryn reached to help him up. He took his place back on the bench.

“I know, I am too old to sit on the ground like that. You retired, really? When? Why?”

“This morning, before I came here,” she replied. “It goes back to that whole problem of ‘retreating.’ I had dinner with Mark and his wife last night and they pointed out some things about how I have used my career to avoid confronting personal issues. Much like what Axum and you said. You were all correct.”

“That made you retire?”

Kathryn shook her head and said, “No, not just that. I have no passion for it anymore, Chakotay. I spend every day going through the motions. That’s not serving anyone, it’s just filling a spot. I heard my father tell another officer one time that he didn’t want to be one of those admirals who retired *before* they retired. I realized that’s exactly what I’ve done, my heart and soul retired from Starfleet a while ago. I just decided to make it official and let the rest of me catch up.”

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Chakotay mused.

“This means I no longer have Starfleet as a retreat from life,” Kathryn added.

Chakotay smiled. He turned his body on the bench towards Kathryn.

“Maybe the time for ‘old friends’ has passed,” he said. “Maybe it’s time for new friends – albeit ones with a passing familiarity.”

Kathryn smiled back at him and said, “Tell me more.”

Chakotay stood again suddenly and sprinted about thirty feet down the garden path. He turned back towards Kathryn, put his hands in his pockets, and began leisurely strolling towards her, whistling.

She watched him approach with a grin.

As he reached the bench, he looked at her and feigned surprise.

“I am so sorry, miss, I did not see you there. I hope I did not startle you.”

He reached out a hand towards her and said, “My name is Chakotay. I am an archeologist.”

Kathryn took the offered hand and shook it.

“My name is Kathryn,” she replied. “I am unemployed.”

Chakotay’s eyes widened in mock horror and he put his hand over his chest.

“Unemployed? And out here on a bench, by yourself, in the rain? That is unacceptable. Would you care to join me for a bite to eat? Or, perhaps you might enjoy a coffee?”

Kathryn chuckled and said, “I’ve been known to enjoy a cup of coffee.”

Chakotay bowed slightly and offered Kathryn his elbow.

“Would you do me the honor of joining me for a hot beverage, then?” he asked.

She stood and took his arm. She suddenly felt a little nervous.

“I guess I’ve got nothing to lose,” she said a little shakily.

Chakotay put a reassuring hand on hers, the one resting in the crook of his arm.

“Just a couple of hours,” he said.

She smiled and replied, “OK, I've next to nothing to lose.”

Chakotay smiled, his dimples finally making an appearance.

“And maybe everything to gain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if they end up "together." I believe they stay in each other's lives. Friends? Yes. Best friends? I hope so. Lovers? I don't know. The water flowing under the bridge can erode a lot. Sometimes even the best loves cannot be fully restored.
> 
> But that's a pessimist's view. I leave it to readers -- particularly those with rosier outlooks -- to imagine what might have happened after an afternoon coffee.


End file.
